Andrew Cogan

Cogan built his career in India in the service of the East India Company as a chief of the Masulipatnam factory and the chief negotiator in the purchase of land for building Madras.

In 1639 Cogan and Francis Day negotiated the purchase of a strip of land situated south of the Dutch factory at Pulicat from the Raja of Chandragiri, where Madras was built.

The East India Company, which already began licensed trading at Surat needed a port closer to the Malaccan Straits in order to secure its trade routes and commercial interests in the spice trade. The availability of cotton at a much cheaper rate and strategic location of the future town upon an island between the Adyar and Cooum rivers contributed to the selection of this location.

Day and Cogan got a license to build a fort and a castle in the contracted region, and are considered the founders of Madras. The fort which was completed on 23 April 1644, coinciding with St George’s Day, the patron saint of England and was therefore called Fort St George. The place soon became the center of the trade activities. Indian merchants and artificers were attracted to the settlement and encouraged to settle there permanently under a promise of exemptions from import taxes for a period of thirty years. The fort became a core of the future colonial city which became the headquarters of the company in south India in 1641, and the first company settlement in India to be fortified.

Cogan was made the Agent of Madras and during his tenure he strengthened the fortifications and worked to make the town prosperous. On charges that he spent to many resources on the fortifications, he handed over his resignation and returned to England.